The Colfax Crew
There's no sexy way to say it. There's no way to sprinkle magic dust over the truth to make it disappear. No matter how much time passes between then… More
Prison Writing Award Winners: 2014–2015
Announcing the winners of PEN’s annual Prison Writing Contest, one of the few outlets of free expression for the country’s incarcerated population. More
The Summer I Lost My Innocence
She was alive. I could see the covers move over her shoulder just a little bit. The morning light creeping through the sheer curtains at an odd angle across… More
Six-Word Memoirs
“Six-Word Memoirs” are short life stories, a personal twist on the form that, according to literary lore, Hemingway started when challenged in a bar to write a… More
Dodging Dictators
We moved the pieces back and forth on the table, but in the end gave up; it proved impossible to find a configuration that expressed the simultaneous desire to… More
Remedios Varo: Letters, Dreams and Other Writings
Then I told the executioner that now he could kill me, because the man I loved was woven together with me for all eternity. More
The PEN Ten with Peter von Ziegesar
Writing about my family in a memoir was about as daring as it gets ... I was sure that when the book came out I was going to be… More
Feasts Beneath the Cottonwood Tree
It was our deep and silent secret that lined my pockets with silver dollars and kept my cigar box stacked high with dollar bills. I quickly learned the power… More
Lessons in Love and Loss
Today is my birthday. Now that I've lived longer than I ever expected, and while I still have my right mind, I thought I'd better write down some things… More
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